Spiritual Drawing

Another Kind of Private Art

As I work and play in my sketchbooks, I continue to think about the private expressions of art that we’ve been discussing the last couple of weeks—the uncensored angst in Frida Kahlo’s sketchbook diaries and the deeply personal handkerchief drawings lovingly labored over by a prisoner turning to art.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve also been learning another kind of private art practice—using drawing in my spiritual group as a way to access inner guidance, to feel into my body’s knowledge, my unconscious, and my soul.

In our classes and get-togethers, one of my favorite teacher-colleagues often guides us to draw stick figures as we dive into a meditative process to perceive ourselves without words, making space for our bodies and spirits to communicate via symbols and images. And as we trust into those symbols, we allow them to surface more easily and help ourselves understand ourselves.

At first, I was uncomfortable with this because I felt there was no way I could make a good drawing in the heat of the moment of whatever spiritual discovery we might be doing. I’m an artist—other people in the class might look at my bad drawing and think I suck—oh no!

But then I realized I had to let it go in order to get what I wanted—spiritual growth.

Over time, I became fascinated with using the act of drawing as a way to receive or gather spiritual information—making marks and creating personal symbols to glean wisdom, counsel, or support from my body, my unconscious, or the divine.

I was also eager to bring this intention into my sketchbook practice, but at first, I couldn’t figure out how. It took me a while to realize that probably the biggest difference between the drawings I do in my sketchbook, which are almost always about exploring an aesthetic process or improving my skills, and the drawings I do with my spiritual group, which are about connecting into our bodies and souls, is the intent.

The intention of those spiritual drawings has nothing to do with the way they look, it’s about the content that is held within them. The drawings are in service to one’s spiritual practice or journey rather than being an end in themselves. It isn’t about line quality or color relationships or all the other formal elements we concern ourselves with in traditional art making. In a situation like this, that kind of training can actually get in the way.

Making Room for the Unknown

It has felt exciting to add this additional intention into my private art practice because as soon as I did it, I realized I’d opened up a whole rich vein of possibility. This kind of drawing can pull from a variety of non-artistic intentions—it can be an act of transmission from the subtle worlds/my spiritual support system; it can be a vehicle for learning from my unconscious; it can serve as an emotional release; or it can be a way I access messages from my physical body. It’s up to me really.

Now this process is not always earth shattering; sometimes, it’s quite minor—perhaps a noticing, or a reminder of something I already know, or even a small but pleasurable ‘aha.’ Other times, it can be intensely emotional or significant—offering a new understanding of joy, or transmitting a loving support for my anguish, or offering a path forward through stuckness. But however it shows up, it’s always personally meaningful.

“Loving Support.” A detail from one of my ‘transmission’ drawings.

It seems similar to keeping a journal of one’s dreams—a way to deeply attend to and receive from the non-rational side of life or self, which often communicates through symbols, coincidences, hunches or intuition. Contemporary educated secular society makes very little room for the unknown or non-rational, so if we want it, we have to make that space for ourselves.

Mapping

Recently, I did a drawing during one of our meditation exercises that I perceived as a kind of ‘map’ of my experience during that exercise. I thought I’d share it because the teacher’s response gave me such a wonderfully insightful way to perceive making this kind of drawing. I thought you might find it helpful in case you want to try it yourself.

Here’s the little ‘map’ drawing I did during that meditation:

And this is her response—I think it provides both a method and an intention for the practice of this kind of drawing:

“Even if you can’t think of specific possibilities in a given situation, just drawing a grouping of images like this opens an energetic field for possibility to drop into. That is all that is really needed to let in a new impulse.” -Rue Hass

A new impulse. Yes. As small and as big as that.

Light a candle if you want. Bring a question or an intention or a tangle to the page. Maybe call in your ‘allies’ if that’s your thing, and if it’s not, invite your higher self or your inner knowing to help you—then allow your hand to respond.

This is one way that art making can serve anyone the way keeping a journal can serve anyone. And as we start to listen to our lives in this way, new dimensions of experience begin to make themselves known to us—it’s like a deepening feeling of companionship with life itself.

One nice thing about using drawing instead of—or in addition to—words is that words are often connected to our analytic minds, which can make it hard to trust a non-verbal message. Drawing can be an easy way to get out of your head and into the rest of your body, as long as you can quiet the part of your mind that says, oh, that’s a bad drawing. One way to do that is to busy that critical side of the brain with the job of being curious and listening to or interpreting those marks on the page. What are they offering you?

What do you think? Do you do this kind of thing already? If so, what’s your practice?

If you don’t make art, what do you think of adding images to the words in your journal (if you keep one)?

Or maybe it’s too woo-woo for you?

Whatever it is, I’d love to know.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. So much gets clarified for me as I share my thoughts with you.

If you have a friend you think might like reading the Pink Teacup too, I’d be honored if you’d forward this newsletter or share this post in whatever way is most natural for you.